Up to 400m long.
IIRC that is what they also stated in the HBO Max film.
I’ve come to like the 1984 Dune movie. It is not a good movie but I like it the same way I like the Flash Gordon movie. It’s just…kinda nuts yet great and bad at the same time (Flash Gordon, an objectively bad movie, is just really, really great).
That said, Stellan Skarsgard is fantastic as the Baron in this version. Sooooo menacing and not overplayed at all. Legit scary guy and, moreso, because he exudes intelligence combined with his malevolence.
Skarsgard was definitely channeling Brando’s Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now.
Lets not forget the Baron from the novel was described as drugging, raping and murdering his sex slaves, and complained that he would have to just send Paul Atreides to die in the desert instead of being allowed to rape him. He’s depraved as well as evil. I agree Skarsgard did a great job, but I think the 1984 movie was actually closer to the original character.
Maybe the worms can get so big because they are supported by the sand the way whales get supported by water?
Of course, the Lynch movie was also a big old hunk of cheese. In some ways that’s amusing, but that doesn’t make it good.
Oh yeah I noticed that too.
I don’t think anyone knows that at the time of Dune. Well, anyone in a position to kill a worm. Liet Keynes knew, but kept it a secret.
The didn’t? I had no idea. I thought they knew it the whole time, but I believe you.
Having read Dune - first three books as I remember long ago when I was a kid and having seen the terrible Lynch movie as a kid, I loved this version. Saw it in the theater (2D) and it worked well. I can’t see a better rendition being done really.
So you basically want another story, not the actual book. 
Oh and for your info, the desert people Herbert was inspiring parts of Fremen on were and are not Arabs, so your arch “use real Arabs” is actually committing more of an error than he is.
They’re a different flavor of people. Not bad guys, but rather like all of humanity, having been manipulated by the Bene Gesserit planning and the imperial system. It’s not simple White Hat Black Hat set-up.
Agreed. The author of the book made those very specific choices - not accidental and part of his message. If one doesn’t like that as the story, well then don’t watch the film.
Making the direct call to the cultural melanges, I always thought it was a kind of call out to both American ideas and Middle Eastern culture as a kind of interesting cultural critique.
What?
Their set-up is that of a bunch of people who have sent around a century avoiding a genocidal dictatorship that literally hunts them down from the sky (the Harkonnen) like sub-human animals.
It’s bizarre - you think a century (more actually probably) of being hunted marginalized people, they’re not going to be Kumbaya…
Weirdo reading of their situation
Agreed, Chalamet was perfect as Paul.
Obviously some people want to have … Dune that is not in fact Dune but totally a different movie (and different book) for reasons…
I read something recently (sorry, no cite, I forget where) that Villeneuve explicitly toned down the Baron’s profound depravity. He did not think audiences today would tolerate it. So, he made the Baron more menacing.
They definitely knew the worms were important in making spice which is why they never killed them.
As big as they were all you need to do is lure a worm around and then go nuts on it with rockets and lasers. As big as they are the Empire certainly had the wherewithal to kill one. And, they are trivially easy to lure where you want them.
The empire knew full well not to kill them (and is why they put up with a worm eating expensive harvesters and people on occasion).
I saw this movie on Saturday and The French Dispatch on Sunday and Timothée Chalamet is in both. Weirdly, both films included joking references to his lack of muscles.
Again, this is silly. Adaptations always change things for many reasons—to suit a new medium, to suit a new interpretation, to suit a new audience. Changing even big things isn’t making it “another story.” Changing little things like terminology here and there is nowhere near it. Seriously, do you not understand what adaptation is?
When you tell a story again, you often change things. Some things you change for X reason, some things you change for Y reason. No serious artist slavishly accept every minor detail of the original. This attitude that if one changes even the smallest detail for what (I argue) are good reasons, then “oh you don’t even want Dune” is a supremely unserious attitude.
“I don’t like this bit here” is a perfectly valid reason to change something in an adaptation and is something that adapters routinely do. Are you really not aware of this?
It’s not “kumbaya” to judge people regarding their acts of cruelty against others.
The second movie now has the green light - hooray!
Screen Rant has an interesting take.
Wait, What?
I know that I missed a whole bunch of stuff in what was to me a confusing (and simultaneously slow) movie. But what I saw was pretty much Paul as the protagonist hero.
He was the protagonist, but it was clear that he struggled with the decision to join the Fremen, knowing what it would cost the Universe.
However, the moment when he made the decision (when he interrupted Jessica requesting Stilgar to get them off-planet), should have been done with more weight, ie, that he knew his decision to go to Sietch Tabr effectively condemned billions by shifting the path of history.
Am I supposed to have figured this out without having read the book? I don’t recall destroying the universe in the 1990’s video game.